Trees (and Good News)

I like trees. During the weekend I just planted a second apple tree in the yard, right next to the white nectarine tree and the new raspberry bushes placed over the weekend too. I was busy digging holes, so I wasn't able to photograph the moment, so I'll show some other trees I've enjoyed.

The good news (and main reason for this post) is I was asked to do a photo shoot for the Highway Patrol today. It's not every day someone gets asked to shoot police officers! It all goes down Monday, the first of two shoots. I'll probably post the pictures here once the project is done.

This tree was photographed only a few months ago, the others were taken some time ago.
This next one was taken as a thunder storm was passing by. I love the colors and the twisted tree trunk.

On the Playground at the Park

My little 2-year-old has been excited to go to the park to play. We told her she would have to wait until the snow melted and the weather was a little warmer. But as I considered photo opportunities, my little girl was about to get her way (as usual).

It was a cold evening so our visit to the park was short. I didn't even stick around long enough to pull out proper lighting equipment to use while shooting, so I grabbed my camera, two lenses and a tripod and set up my gear on the playground. My wife was a great sport standing at one end of the merry-go-round while I was on the other end. I mounted the camera to a tripod and selected a smaller aperture than I typically shoot with to increase the exposure time. We got the merry-go-round spinning at a good speed, and I fired away until my fingers were too cold and numb to press the shutter release button anymore (which didn't take long). We were dizzy and a little sick for a couple hours after this because of the spinning, but here's two photos that made it worth it:

I typically don't use color filters to make adjustments to my photos, but I wanted to try a warming filter for this one, as well as a few other adjustments such as the vignetting and blur around the edges.